When I Became a Reader

I've been through many reading phases throughout my life.
Biographies were my favorite through elementary school. The librarian made sure I had books every week. I loved reading about Amelia Earhart, Thomas Edison and Clara Barton.
Then the ugly years hit and junior high teachers made reading such a chore! Grades depended on reading and doing a report on the book. Sheesh. What a downer.
High school was similar to junior high, except English teachers wanted more about symbolism and theme and diagramming sentences. I was "forced" to read BARTLEBY, LORD OF THE FLIES and MOBY DICK. I didn't like those books. At all.

The last years of formal schooling made me dislike reading. I read magazines and receipts and billboards, but anything over fifty pages was tooooo long. 
After high school, I decided to try and read the classics that my friends read in different high school and I didn't get to read. JANE EYRE, A TALE OF TWO CITIES, THE SECRET GARDEN and THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO soon became a few of my favorite classics.

JANE EYRE was not only a great romance to my impressionable mind, it was a life study of a girl wronged all her life, and yet, she remained true to herself. I. Loved. It. I'm not sure how many times I've read the book. It's one of the few I have reread. I also might own a few of the movies...

(I also love how the covers are reworked over the years, too. It's interesting to see what the designers thought the cover would convey of the story.)

How Do You Feel about Love Triangles?

By Julie Daines

All, right. Let's get right down to it. In YA literature, love triangles are everywhere. Example from Twilight: the Edward-Bella-Jacob triangle.

I want to know how you feel about love triangles. Do you like them? Hate them? Don't really care? Depends on how it's written?

As a genreal rule, I don't like them. I don't mind so much if it's simply a case of two people liking the same person. What I hate is when that one person strings along the other two.

I have to fall back on the Twilight example. Bella likes Edward, and she seems set in her feelings towards him. But she also sort of likes Jacob, even though she claims there is no chance she'll ever end up with him. Instead of kindly cutting him loose, she strings him along. We see this kind of thing all the time in YA lit.

I think the reason I can't stand this type of scenario is because it makes the character doing the stringing appear unfaithful, cruel, and selfish. Why would either of the guys put up with that? The story loses credibility and my sympathy for the characters.

What are your thoughts on the love triangle?